About Jorge Pinto

Jorge Pinto

I intend to use this page as a personal platform to promote the works that I publish in Jorge Pinto Books Inc., a company that I founded in 2004, which is a niche multicultural independent publishing house registered in New York with more than 100 titles to date in print and more than 20 eBooks for iPad, Nook and Kindle. Also, in 2011, with Christine Tsui-Hua Huang,

I established ONEW (Old & New | East & West Cultural Services. (古今東西文化), a Taipei-based cultural company to promote art and culture as well as international exchanges between the east and the west. We co-curated Taiwan Latino Film Festival 2011 (2011台灣拉美影展), our first company project, in partnership with Taiwan Film and Culture Association（台灣電影文化協會) led by the internationally-acclaimed Taiwanese film director Hou Hsiao-Hsien (侯孝賢), showcasing 26 films from 17 Latin American countries to show the talents and to promote the knowledge of the culture and the film art in the region.

Every two weeks since October of 2002 I publish my column Business and Books on the cultural industry and new media among others at the Financial Section of El Universal, a leading Mexican daily newspaper. Occasionally I give news interviews for CNN, Bloomberg TV and radio and other media on issues related to media, culture, global economy and entrepreneurial trends including new business models for publishing and art.

I was privileged to have a rich and diverse professional life with opportunities to live in different countries and meet many artists, authors curators as well as political and business leaders. During my years in New York, I was proud to be a board member of El Museo del Barrio as well as Aperture Foundation of Photography. I continue to be a member of the Editorial Board of Americas Quarterly, a magazine of the Council of the Americas. I was the founder of the Center for Global Finance at Pace University in New York in 2000, where I taught for four years. I also served as a board member of the Fondo de Cultura Económica, a leading Mexican publishing house in Mexico.

Before I changed paths into culture-oriented services, I spent years serving as Mexican diplomat and public servant, particularly as Mexican Ambassador to Sweden (1991-94), Mexican Consul General in New York (1995-2000), Deputy Chief of Mission in the Mexican Embassy in Washington D.C. (1983-88) as well as Undersecretary (i.e. Deputy Minister) for Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mexico in charge of Latin American and Cultural Affaires (1994). I was honored to work directly with Jesús Reyes Heroles as his Chief of Staff when he was the Minister of the Interior (Secretario de Gobernación) and also support him as the editor of Linea and of 100 classic political and economic text booklets when he was the President of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI).

In between my diplomat years, I was also recruited as the Executive Director at the Board of the World Bank representing Mexico, Spain, Venezuela and the Central American countries (1989-91). I also served as the Representative for Europe for Nafinsa, Mexico’s National Development Bank based in London, negotiating bank loans and Eurobonds and organized the upgrade of Nafinsa’s London office from a representative office to a full branch (1980-82).

At the beginning of my professional life I got the position of full time tenure professor at UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico) Journalism School and Chief of Staff (Secretario de la Recoría) of the University’s President Pablo Gonzalez Casanova back in the 70’s after I gained my Degree in Law from UNAM, and completed my course work for Master in New York University and my Ph.D. level courses in media, cultural industries and its economics and political impact at the Sorbonne in Paris. As a university student, I started working with Award-winning theater director Hector Azar, as the general coordinator of Casa del Lago, a cultural center from UNAM. .